Lady GaGa

Hot pants, sequins, and totally incredible and sometimes surreal style… that’s the outer provocative side of Lady GaGa. She’s here to impress. However, there’s something more than just a bright cover, this girl is full of surprises in what refers to her talents and abilities as a songwriter and performer. This girl rocks and she’s a total attention grabber going to change the world one sequin at a time!

Lady GaGa is ambitious and she wants more than just topping charts and getting thousands of people come to her concerts, she wants to affect cultures! “My goal as an artist is to funnel a pop record to a world in a very interesting way. I almost want to trick people into hanging with something that is really cool with a pop song. It’s almost like the spoonful of sugar and I’m the medicine,” says GaGa.
Lady GaGa – new funky global phenomenon with an out of this world sound!

Before she became famous

“I was always an entertainer. I was a ham as a little girl and I’m a ham today,” says Lady GaGa. Lady GaGa (Stefani Joanne Germanotta) was born March 20, 1986 to an Italian family in New York. “I’m very Italian,” GaGa told Vogue March 2011 issue. “I call [my dad] every day. I ask my mother if he’s been smoking. They are in their 50s, and they still live in the same apartment on the Upper West Side. Nothing has changed since I have become a star. I am a real family girl. When it comes to love and loyalty, I am very old-fashioned. And I am quite down-to-earth for such an eccentric person.”

She grew up in Manhattan, where she attended private school at Convent of the Sacred Heart (the same Paris and Nicky Hilton attended) and later studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “Paris and Nicky Hilton went to my school. In commercial terms, they’ve been quite an influence on me!” Lady GaGa noted years later.

GaGa displayed her music talent in early age when she learnt to play the piano by ear at the age of 4. By 13, she had written her first piano ballad. At 14, she played open mike nights at clubs such as New York’s the Bitter End. “I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece,” Lady said.

When Lady GaGa was still a little girl she never missed a chance to make a show and attract people’s attention. She would dance around the table at fancy Upper West Side restaurants using the breadsticks as a baton or sing into a plastic tape recorder to the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson.

At school she took part in multiple school productions, including the roles of Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anna Andreyevna in The Government Inspector, Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, and Alice More in A Man for All Seasons. When she was a teen, she also sang in the productions of the Regis Jazz Band.

“I always loved rock and pop and theater. When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three,” said GaGa. “I look at those artists as icons in art. It’s not just about the music. It’s about the performance, the attitude, the look; it’s everything. And, that is where I live as an artist and that is what I want to accomplish.”

It’s a well-known fact that Queen’s song “Radio GaGa” is where Lady GaGa’s name comes from. “It’s a nickname from an old friend, who I did a lot of my earlier more underground stuff with. He was like, ‘You are so Freddy Mercury. You just feel like a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.’ And he said, ‘You’re so GaGa. So Radio GaGa.’ And then he just started calling me GaGa. And then I stuck the Lady on the front because it’s a total contradiction to what GaGa kind of makes you think of. And that’s the idea is that I’m totally 100% woman and strong, but I’m a little crazy,” Lady GaGa explained in her interview with Popbytes in 2008. “I don’t create any separation between my birth name and my subsequent birth name — Lady Gaga. Gaga is not manufactured…it is not artificial,” GaGa told Billboard Magazine in 2011.

GaGa entered Tisch School of the Arts when she was only 17, becoming one of the 20 people in the world to get such early admission. In her interview with ELLE June 2009 issue Lady GaGa explained her reason to drop out of New York University: “I loved NYU, but I thought I could teach myself about art better than the school could. I really felt New York was my teacher and that I needed to bite the bullet and go it alone. I wasn’t interested in going to frat parties and doing those sorts of collegiate things. I was really interested in the music scene and waitressing and cleaning toilets, or whatever the f*** it was I was doing.”

GaGa names David Bowie, Queen as well as ’80s dance-pop such as Madonna and Michael Jackson as some of her greatest music influences to date. “I think what Madonna and I share is that we are both fearless,” Lady GaGa once said. “We both have a lot of nerve. We’re both Italian-American women, we both started out in the New York underground scene – and we both became famous when we dyed our hair blonde.”

“It’s not a secret that I have been inspired by tons of people,” Lady GaGa told Vogue. “David Bowie and Prince being the most paramount in terms of live performance. I could go on and on about all of the people I have been compared to—from Madonna to Grace Jones to Debbie Harry to Elton John to Marilyn Manson to Yoko Ono—but at a certain point you have to realize that what they are saying is that I am cut from the cloth of performer, that I am like all of those people in spirit.”

Getting famous

Lady GaGa started her stage career performing in the Lower East Side club with Mackin Pulsifer and SGBand. “I’d be go-go dancing in front of 15 people who didn’t know who I was but I’m a fearless person, although I shudder now when I look back at how naive I was,” GaGa recalls.

Later she realized that all singers she was performing with were making the same kind of music and so she decided to do something “ultimately fresh and provocative” in the underground scene – she started doing pop music pairing it with unique shows that had a theatrical feel. “Everybody did the same s**t, super-boring. I wanted to do something that was original and fresh,” she said.

At the age of 19 Lady GaGa signed her first deal with Def Jam Records but then quit the label three months later. GaGa focused all her attention on local NY shows that, as she thought, could help her build her own fanbase.

According to GaGa’s first manager Bob Leone, when just starting her career at the age of 13 – 14 Lady GaGa was a complete opposite of what we now know as the household name Lady GaGa – she used to be very shy and unsure of herself. Leone told People in October 2010: “She was painfully shy – very different from who she is now. She came to the open mics with her mother twice before she built up the courage to go onstage,” he recalled adding that GaGa was “prodigy-like.” “She was clearly a very good songwriter and keyboard player. It was a very important six months [in 2006] because going into it, she was Stefani, and she was still writing pop music. By the end of that six month period, she was officially Lady Gaga. Nobody talked about anything after that show but Lady Gaga. She bantered with the audience and was very funny. I never noticed that sense of humor when she was Stefani.”

Local shows that Lady GaGa thought would help her spread the word about her music, like, for example, her August 2007 Lollapolooza performance, created quite a media buzz but mostly not because of the music but because of GaGa’s look – she was wearing her famous and soon-to-be-a-trademark-look hot pants.

In early 2007 Lady GaGa started working with singer/producer/songwriter Akon. While working for other artists he often asked her to go in the booth and sing back vocals. Having listened to her singing in the booth and having checked out her demo recordings, Akon signed her with Kon Live at Interscope Records.

Around this same time GaGa met a fellow aspiring dancer/performance artist Lady Starlight who actually helped her work out her onstage style. Together the two Ladies collaborated on several projects. Shiny disco balls that later were used at Lady GaGa’s concerts were first introduced at these shows.
In October 2007 Lady GaGa and Lady Starlight presented a new show, “New York Street Revival and Trash Dance,” where GaGa debuted her new look – blonde locks – and her new performance concept – having two back-up dancers to perform her dance routine with.

Around this time GaGa started working on material for her own record produced by RedOne. GaGa’s goal with the debut LP was to mix retro dance beats with pop and rock’n’roll elements. Lady GaGa’s debut album The Fame was released on October 28, 2008.

International success

Lady GaGa stormed the global music scene with her single ‘Just Dance’ in 2008. Followed by super successful ‘Poker Face’ it showed everybody that Lady GaGa had come to stay. Topping charts with her songs, going on small tours, Lady GaGa continued to spread her music and enlarge the fanbase.

In fall 2008 GaGa toured with New Kids On the Block. She was also featured on their song ‘Big Girl Now.’ At the same time she was working on promoting her image worldwide with the help of Hous Of GaGa, a creative team of artists, designers, technicians and others who created her shows and her on stage look as well as her media image. Haus Of GaGa stands behind her metallic sunglasses with digital screens, geometric haircuts, crazy lenses and Disco Stick.

Proving her international success Lady GaGa headed on her first big tour in early 2009 as a support act for Pussycat Dolls. In March 2009 she headed on her first small headline The Fame Ball tour visiting several venues within the US.

In February 2009 Lady GaGa was also invited to perform at Brit Awards where she dueted with the Pet Shop Boys.

GaGa went on her first world tour in summer 2009 in support of her debut album The Fame. Teaming up with two dancers, Cinnamon and Ginger and DJ/producer Space Cowboy, GaGa created a “couture version” of her New York performances with the disco balls, hot pants, sequins, and stilettos still there. GaGa said her tour was more of pop performance art than usual shows.

As a sign of global recognition, Lady GaGa’s ‘The Fame’ became the theme song for the Australian version of Make Me a Supermodel.

Lady GaGa’s provocative on and off-stage costumes also contributed to her international success – hot pants, crazy shoulders, lingerie-as-outerwear, hip-stressing leotards, inflated shoulders, crazy hairdos and wigs, sky-high booties and surreal sunglasses and accessories – it was something the world wasn’t used to seeing pop singers wear. In late fall 2009 Lady GaGa was honored with the Stylemaker Award at the 13th annual ACE Awards.

Besides, Lady GaGa’s interviews, extravagant style, unforgettable performances and, obviously, her music, contributed to the fact that she became a global music phenomenon and was even voted the most googled person in 2009, beating Michael Jackson and other celebrities. Also, in September 2009 GaGa’s ‘Poker Face’ became the most downloaded song in the UK with 779,000 sales since the download chart began five years ago.

In fall 2009 Lady GaGa was going to go on another tour with Kanye West, Fame Kills tour. The tour was later cancelled.

In 2009 Lady GaGa headed on her major headline tour, The Monster Ball, in support of her re-release album The Fame Monster. The tour was a real extravaganza with all the design, evolutional concept, performance and costumes. GaGa described her shows as pop eletro opera and “multimedia artistic experience”, “the most beautiful, expensive-looking, delicious show.” GaGa continued her tour in 2010 with a number of shows scheduled for 2011.

In spring 2010 Lady GaGa was included into Time Magazine’s list of Most Influential People In The World, also making it into Forbes’ list of World’s Most Powerful Women 2010 (#7) later in the year. In 2011 she topped the Forbes‘ list.

In October 2010 Lady GaGa broke another record scoring 1 billion views on YouTube and becoming the first artist in You Tube history to reach this mark.

GaGa’s international success and global recognition means other singers want to have her on their albums or tracks. Like, for example, in spring 2010 Lady GaGa was featured on Beyonce Knowles’ ‘Video Phone’ with Beyonce later lending her vocals to GaGa’s ‘Telephone’. Lady GaGa teamed up with Rihanna for ‘Broken Heels’ off of Ri’s album Loud (2010).

In November 2010 Lady GaGa was ranked 4th on Forbes’ list of biggest grossing female celebrities.

In December 2010 Lady GaGa became the global spokesperson for MAC’s Viva Glam campaign. The same month eight wax figures of GaGa were unveiled at Madame Tussauds museums worldwide.

Billboard Magazine named GaGa Artist Of The Year 2010, while CNN named her the most provocative celebrity 2010. Also, DoSomething.org named her the most charitable star 2010.

In late March 2011 Lady GaGa announced her new job as a fashion & art columnist for V Magazine.

Albums

THE FAME (2008)
Lady GaGa’s debut album The Fame hit stores on October 28, 2008. On the album GaGa collaborated with producers Akon, RedOne, Rob Fusari and Martin Kierszenbaum. “The Fame is about how anyone can feel famous,” Lady GaGa said about her debut effort. “Pop culture is art. It doesn’t make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and you hear it all over The Fame. But, it’s a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle.”

The debut record consisted of 12 tracks representing a cool mix of pop, disco and rock’n’roll, just like Lady GaGa always wanted. “I marry a lot of different genres, from Def Leppard drums and handclaps to metal drums on urban tracks,” Lady GaGa described her album in her interview with Billboard in 2008. “It’s very 70′s, with early 80′s Prince-like guitars and 80′s synths. It’s a bit retro, a bit glamorous, and you can dance to it. It’s very futuristic, very fresh, and very dramatic, sort of like theatrical pop,” Lady GaGa said of The Fame.

“I write about what I know: sex, pornography, art, fame obsession, drugs, and alcohol,” Lady GaGa said about the album in Elle June 2009. “I mean, why would anyone care to listen to me if I wasn’t an expert in what I write about? And the album itself is the story of me and my friends, and, again, our lives in New York—and you either want to know about it and be a part of it or you don’t. I am completely 100 percent honest in what I do and who I am, and I’ve got nothing to hide.”

The Fame was generally praised by critics though some, like Entertainment Weekly, still ranked it as B-. Meanwhile, New York Post called Lady GaGa the “future of pop”, while Billboard praised her for creating an album full of hits. Allmusic wrote: “Fueled by heavy dance tracks and popping electronic beats, The Fame, the first album by the glamorous Lady GaGa, is a well-crafted sampling of feisty anti-pop in high quality.”

All songs on the album were composed by Lady GaGa.

The first single off of the album was ‘Just Dance’ featuring Colby O’Donis. It was released April 8, 2008 in the States. The song was a hit at US clubs and debuted at #1 in the US and the UK, as well as became the #1 on iTunes. “It’s been a long running dream to have a big hit in the UK. I was in my apartment in Los Angeles getting ready to go to dance rehearsal when they called and told me, and I just cried,” Lady GaGa revealed.

“I’ve actually known Colby for a while through Akon,” Lady GaGa told PopBytes about the collaboration. “[Colby’s] got this amazing voice and he produces and he writes and he’s very young. It was fun for me to have somebody that is unknown and kind of up & coming to have it really be an event record that’s more kind of coming up from the LA radio scene as opposed to just showing a famous face.”

‘Poker Face’ was chosen to be the second single. It was super popular with the audience. ‘Poker Face’ also debuted at #1 on Billboard 100 making Lady GaGa the only artist in 10 years to have two consecutive single top the Billboard chart. Also, she is only the fourth female artist in the last 25 years to open with two singles at #1.

The first song Lady GaGa and RedOne did together was ‘Boys, Boys, Boys,’ inspired by Motley Crew’s ‘Girls, Girls, Girls.’ GaGa teamed up with producer Rob Fusari for ‘Beautiful Dirty Rich’, ‘Dirty Ice Cream’ and ‘Disco Heaven’.

Another single, ‘Paparazzi’ is “about wooing the paparazzi and wanting fame” on one hand, and about “wanting a guy to love you and the struggle of whether you can have success or love or both,” on the other.

According to GaGa herself, the most “vulnerable” song of the album is Queen-influenced ‘Brown Eyes,’ while ‘Eh Eh’ is “my simple pop song about finding someone new and breaking up with the old boyfriend.”

Lady GaGa’s The Fame has two versions. The original version of the album contains 12 tracks, while the international version has 14 songs, an alternate track-listing and bonus tracks. Bonus tracks vary from country to country.

By Christmas 2009 Lady GaGa had sold 8 million copies of The Fame. In March 2011 the album reached platinum in downloads in the UK topping the 300,000 mark.

THE FAME MONSTER (2009)The Fame Monster was released in 2009 and included eight songs that were meant to show the darker side of fame as Lady GaGa saw it while traveling around the world in 2008 – 2009.

She headed on the second big tour in support of the new LP in November 2009. The Monster Ball Tour was a sold out show at all venues.

The first single off of the album, ‘Bad Romance,’ topped music charts in 18 countries.

In August 2010 Lady GaGa released a new album, a remix album consisting of 10 tracks that were considered most popular Lady GaGa’s songs. Lady Gaga-The Remix included such tracks as ‘Just Dance,’ ‘Pokerface,’ ‘Paparazzi, ‘Bad Romance’, and ‘Alejandro.’

At the end of 2010 it was reported ‘Alejando’ became the 8th most watched video on YouTube. While The Fame Monster was named the best-selling album of 2010 with 5.8 million copies sold. The album also set a new United World Chart record after remaining in the top 40 for the total of 115 weeks.

BORN THIS WAY (2011)

Lady GaGa started working on her second album in late winter 2010. By March she had already finished writing the core for it, she said in her interview with MTV. In June 2010 Lady said she’d already finished working on the album but didn’t intend to release it until mid 2011. “It came so quickly. I’ve been working on it for months, and I feel very strongly that it’s finished right now. Some artists take years. I don’t. I write music every day,” Lady GaGa said.

The album title, Born This Way, was announced at 2010 MTV Video Music Awards where Lady GaGa received the record number of awards. GaGa said Born This Way was “the greatest of my career,” “the greatest music I’ve ever written” and “best work to date.”

“The album is my absolute greatest work I’ve ever done and I’m so excited about it,” Lady GaGa confessed. “The message, the melodies, the direction, the meaning, what it will mean to my fans and what it will mean in my own life – it’s utter liberation. I knew I had an ability to change the world when I started to receive letters from fans: ‘You saved my life…’ ‘I’m gay and my parents threw me out.’ My fans have related to me as a human being and as a non-human being – as a super-human person that I truly am. Everyone tells me I’m arrogant but my music’s the only thing I’ve got, so you’ll have to let me be confident about one thing. I suppose that’s what you can expect from the album: a lot of hit records that will piss people off. Beyonce said: ‘Where the f**k do you get these ideas from?’ And I was like: ‘I don’t know Bee, it was just the way I was born’.”

In her November 2010 tweet GaGa said her album was “almost perfect.” “Endless melodies, hooks [and] poetry sledge-hammering my skull. It won’t be much longer, it’s almost perfect. But I (we) don’t want almost,” she wrote. “It ranges from ‘Born This Way’ being very light, to the rest of the album becoming quite darker. I, in jest, say that ‘Born This Way’ is the marijuana to the heroins of the album, the ultimate intense intoxication of the record,” Lady told Billboard Magazine.

GaGa’s huge fan Elton John said in his interview that the lead single of the album, ‘Born This Way’ was one of the best songs about gay community ever written, a real new gay anthem. “‘Born This Way’ will completely get rid of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive.’ This is the new ‘I Will Survive.’ This is the new gay anthem. Actually, it’s not a gay anthem – it can apply to anybody,” Elton John said.

Lady GaGa even had a tattoo with the name of the new album on her left hip.

The first single off the album, ‘Born This Way,’ was released on Febraury 11, 2011. “I wrote it in ten f*cking minutes,” GaGa told Vogue March 2011, “and it is a completely magical message song. And after I wrote it, the gates just opened, and the songs kept coming. It was like an immaculate conception.” ‘Born This Way’ reached the top of Billboard Hot 100 in just four days and became the fastest selling single in iTunes with more than one million copies sold worldwide in the first week of release.

“Harkening back to the early ’90s when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community…the lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual. I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make.’ ” GaGa said about the song’s message.

The second single called ‘Judas’ is about falling in love with backstabbing men of the biblical variety. Video for the song became GaGa’s directorial debut. The pop star spoke to E! News about her controversial music video, saying it wasn’t about religion at all, but about a failed relationship with an ex-boyfriend: “It’s essentially about me going back to an ex-boyfriend and still being in love with someone that betrayed me, someone that was bad for me. That’s really what the video is, the video is a metaphor for forgiveness, and for betrayal and darkness being one of the challenges in life as opposed to being a mistake. The name Judas is something that bears such an intense connotation. I often feel misunderstood, and I think my fans do too. I think [the video] liberates the word in a lot of ways…takes it out of the negative and into the positive.”

‘The Edge Of Glory’ became the third single released, it was shortly followed by ‘Hair’ and ‘Marry The Night’.

Another song, ‘Americano,’ is, according to GaGa, “a big mariachi techno-house record, where I am singing about immigration law and gay marriage and all sorts of things that have to do with disenfranchised communities in America. It sounds like a pop record, but when I sing it, I see Edith Piaf in a spotlight with an old microphone.”

Lady GaGa says she wrote ‘Bad Kids’ for “extraordinary people”. Producer and collaborator Fernando Garibay told MTV: “Just because you’re a bad kid growing up, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. And a lot of bad kids end up being extraordinary people, like Lady Gaga, and she wanted to make people who had a rough start or maybe not the most ideal circumstances have a voice and a message. And it’s basically about staying true to yourself and if you’re bad, so what? You can still be great.”

The album has some rock’n'roll moments, too. “There’s a Bruce Springsteen vibe, there’s a Guns N’ Roses moment. It’s the anthemic nature of the melodies and the choruses. It is much more vocally up to par with what I’ve always been capable of. It’s more electronic, but I have married a very theatrical vocal to it. It’s like a giant musical-opus theater piece,” Mother Monster added.

In its first week of release Born This Way sold 1.1. million copies helping GaGa break another record as an artist with the highest week sales since 2005 and making her one of five female artists who could sell more than one million albums in the opening week.

A VERY GAGA HOLIDAY (2011)

Before releasing her massive compilation Born This Way — The Remix Lady Gaga announced about her surprise album A Very Gaga Holiday which is planned to be released on November 26th, 2011. The main track of this EP is White Christmas, which was sung by Bing Crosby in the 1954 film of the same name. But Lady Gaga thought that the original version wouldn’t be so exciting for her Little Monsters and changed it her own way having added verses: ‘I’m dreaming of a white snow man, with a carrot nose and charcoal eyes’ and ‘Oh and when he cries, I’m gonna tell him it’s ok, because Santa’s on his sleigh, and he’s on his way.’

Movies & TV

Lady GaGa, but then just Stefani Germanotta, made her small screen debut at the age of 15 in The Sopranos. Her part was very small and not remarkable. Around the same time she starred in the Sexual Harassment Awareness PSA.

She returned to TV in 2005. She took part in MTV’s Boiling Points while having brunch at a NY cafe.

In 2008 GaGa guest starred on The Hills. Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad even helped her fix the broken cat-suit zipper before her performance.

In 2009 she appeared on Gossip Girl as herself.

Reports claim, Lady GaGa is in talks to star on CSI: Miami and make her big screen debut in Final Destination 5.

• Billboard Year End Chart Awards
Hot 100 Artist – Won
Digital Songs Artist – Won
Pop Songs Artist – Won
Canadian Hot 100 Artist - Won
Top Dance/Electronic Artist – Won
Dance/Electronic Album Hot 100 (The Fame) – Won

• Grammy Awards
Best Dance Recording (‘Just Dance’) – Nominated

• MTV Europe Music Awards
Best New Act – Won
Best Female – Nominated
World Stage Live Performance – Nominated
Best Live Act – Nominated
Best Song (‘Poker Face’) – Nominated

• MTV Video Music Awards
Best New Artist – Won
Best Special Effects – Won
Best Art Direction - Won
Video of the Year (‘Poker Face’) – Nominated
Best Female Video – Nominated
Best Pop Video – Nominated
Best Direction (‘Paparazzi’) – Nominated
Best Editing - Nominated
Best Cinematography – Nominated

• ASCAP Awards
Most Performed Songs (‘Just Dance’) – Won
Most Performed Songs (‘Paparazzi’) – Won

• BET Awards

Video of the Year (‘Video Phone’) – Won
Best Collaboration – Nominated

• The Brit Awards
Female Solo Artist - Won
International Breakthrough Act – Won
Best International Album (The Fame) – Won

• Echo Awards
International Female Artist – Won
International Newcomer – Won
International/National Song of the Year (‘Poker Face’) – Won
International/National Album of the Year (The Fame) – Nominated

• GLAAD Media Awards
Outstanding Music Artist – Won

• Grammy Awards
Best Electronic/Dance Album (The Fame) – Won
Best Dance Recording – Won
Album of the Year (The Fame) – Nominated
Song of the Year (‘Poker Face’) – Nominated
Record of the Year – Nominated

• MTV Europe Music Awards
Best Female – Won
Best Pop – Won
Best Song (‘Bad Romance’) – Won
Best Live Act – Nominated
Best Video (‘Telephone’) – Nominated

• MTV Video Music Awards
Video of the Year (‘Bad Romance’) – Won
Best Female Video – Won
Best Pop Video – Won
Best Dance Video – Won
Best Choreography – Won
Best Direction – Won
Best Editing – Won
Best Collaboration – Won
Best Art Direction – Nominated
Best Cinematography – Nominated
Best Special Effects – Nominated
Video of the Year (‘Telephone’) – Nominated
Best Choreography – Nominated
Best Female Video (‘Video Phone’) – Nominated
Best Pop Video – Nominated
Best Collaboration – Nominated
Best Art Direction – Nominated
Best Choreography – Nominated
• MuchMusic Video Awards
International Video (‘Telephone’) – Nominated
International Artist Video – Nominated

• World Music Awards
World’s Pop/Rock Artist - Won
World’s Best New Artist - Won
Best Selling Artist of America – Won
World’s Album of the Year (The Fame) – Won
World’s Song of the Year (‘Poker Face’) – Won

2011

• Grammy Awards
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (‘Bad Romance’) – Won
Best Pop Vocal Album (The Fame Monster) – Won
Best Short Form Music Video (‘Bad Romance’) – Won
Album Of The Year (The Fame Monster)- Nominated
Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals (‘Telephone’) – Nominated
Best Dance Recording (‘Dance In The Dark’) – Nominated

Facts you didn’t know about Lady GaGa

3. The reason why Lady GaGa usually goes pants-less is to make sure her almost blind grandmother can see her on TV. According to GaGa, her grandma is able to make out “lighter parts” of her. “I’ll continue to wear no pants, even on television, so that my grandma can see me.”

4. Lady GaGa used to be a brunette. She dyed her hair blond after an interviewer confused her with Amy Winehosue. “I want to be known for my own look,” Lady told PEOPLE.

7. Lady GaGa is a fan of Amy Winehouse calling her a “real”, authentic artist. “Amy is a real artist. I can’t take my eyes off that beautiful girl. There’s something about her that’s so honest. That was what the Seventies and Eighties were about, and what women were about then, and that’s why legends were created,” Lady GaGa says.

8. Lady GaGa strip danced in New York clubs when she was a teen. “I was working in strip clubs when I was 18. Girls from my background weren’t meant to turn into someone like me. I come from a wealthy Italian family, went to a good school,” she told News of the World. “I went against all I was brought up to be; I moved out of home, wouldn’t take any help from my parents and supported myself with waitressing jobs and stripping.”

9. Lady GaGa designed a charity line of condoms with Jeremy Scott. The line is called Proper Attire condoms. Before designing condoms GaGa had also launched a line of lipstick with Cyndi Lauper and MAC Cosmetics. All proceeds went to the MAC AIDS Fund.

10. Lady GaGa’s porcelain tea cup is a celebrity of its own. GaGa takes her floral cup and saucer everywhere she goes saying that the cup is like her security blanket, it makes her feel at home. “My tea cup is so famous. I yelled at her today I said you’re stealing my thunder go to bed,” Lady joked. “You know now it’s a gimmick and it’s just my tea cup. It’s become a celebrity. I miss home sometimes and I drink a lot of tea so instead of drinking from paper I ask for china.”

11. In spring 2010 in her interview with Time Magazine Lady GaGa hinted at having lupus, a connective tissue disease. Later she confirmed that she didn’t have the disease though the test results were borderline positive.

12. Lady GaGa says she can have an orgasm just by thinking about sex. “I remember the first time that I drank out of an imaginary coffee cup. That’s the very first thing they teach you (in acting class). I can feel the rain, too, when it’s not raining. I can actually mentally give myself an orgasm. You know, sense memory is quite powerful.”

13. Lady GaGa has a number of A-list fans, including Rihanna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Susan Boyle, Elton John and others. “I think Lady Gaga writes great songs,” said Elton praising her for the ability to actually write her own music. The two even collaborated on ‘Hello, Hello’, a soundtrack for Disney’s animated film Gnomeo & Juliet.

14. Lady GaGa had her runway model debut at the Thierry Mugler show during Paris Fashion Week in March 2011.

15. Lady GaGa got Judy Garland’s original ruby red slippers from The Wizard Of Oz as a present for her 25th birthday.

16. Lady GaGa was bullied at school for her looks. “School bullies called me fat and laughed at my appearance. I had a very big nose, very curly brown hair and I was overweight. I got made fun of,” GaGa told in her inteerview with Google. “The boys picked me up and threw me in the trash can on the street, on the corner of my block while all the other girls from the school were leaving and could see me in the trash,” she said in another interview.

17. Lady GaGa is the first celebrity to have 10 million followers on Twitter.

18. She has opened her Christmas workshop at Barney’s New York, at the store’s East 60th Street location. The colorful and whimsical store is full of such eccentric items as her notorious hair bows attached to headbands, iPhone and iPad cases and stiletto-heel holiday stockings. Also studded leather motorcycle jackets and Gaga-style Christmas ornaments can be purchased here. Moreover, candy department offers little monsters-formed cookies and rock candy necklaces. All in all there are eight stations: Candy Shop, Toy Shop, Closet (for apparel and accessories), Library (for books, CDs, media, and paper goods), Gallery (for collectibles and specialty items), Jewelry, Boudoir (for candles and cosmetics) and Holiday. Lady Gaga said that 25 per cent of the proceeds would go to her Born This Way Foundation.

Lady GaGa: Born this way

LADY GAGA’S FASHION & STYLE

Lady GaGa is all about extravaganza. She’s pretty honest about her personal life and actually says she’s got no secrets from her Little Monsters, the name GaGa uses to refer to her fans.

When we think of GaGa we think of her fashion and style, both on and off stage. In her interviews Lady often says fashion plays a huge role in her life and is a big part of her stage performances, too. “Fashion is everything to me. It’s just as important as the music,” Lady GaGa said. “[It] is my whole life. It brings me an inner sense of joy,” she told Manchester’s Key 103 radio show. “I always dress like this – all the time. I just don’ t like [sweat pants]. I just don’t dress like that. I will wear sweat pants in bed once in a while but for the most part I wear something nice in bed too. I’m a lady I don’t talk about that.”

At the beginning of her career she designed most of her costumes herself but then delegated it to the Haus of GaGa.

When Elle asked her what costume she’d like to wear for the rest of her life GaGa said it was a black catsuit though it was very difficult to dance in.

GaGa’s famous for her love of hot pants. She’s even been stopped by police because of her too skimpy clothes. “It’s not that I don’t like pants, I just choose not to wear them some days. I think no pants is sexy. I love the naked human body. I was working in strip clubs when I was 18,” Lady GaGa explained.
In 2009 GaGa was arrested in Chicago for wearing hot pants in the street. “I guess they weren’t really pants at all, but it was really funny because all you saw was this half-naked girl on the street yelling at some cop ‘It’s fashion! I’m an artist!’ It was fun,” GaGa recalled. GaGa even said she wanted to design her own clothing line with a lot of hot pants in it.

Lady GaGa said her career got a big boost when it was reported she had stolen Christina Aguilera’s style. “It was very flattering when it happened,” GaGa said later. “She’s such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn’t know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way, though of course I don’t just want to be remembered for the Christina Aguilera scandal. What it showed me was, even though I’ve only been on the commercial market for seven or eight months, I’ve really burned graphic images of my visuals onto the irises of my fans. They saw a huge, Grammy-winning star who’s been around for years and they recognized Lady GaGa. That to me is quite an accomplishment,” GaGa concluded.

As to her personal life, currently Lady GaGa is dating her on/off boyfriend Luc Carl, who’s said to be the inspiration behind her debut album The Fame. GaGa and Luc had been dating before she became famous but later broke up. They reconciled in 2010. In October 2010 it was reported the two had taken part in the spiritual commitment ceremony to mark their union and declare their desire to spend the rest of their lives together.

Before getting back with Carl Lady GaGa had been briefly dating Speedy but they broke up in 2009. At that time Lady GaGa would say she didn’t need a man and wasn’t interested in relationship, adding that her art and her music was all that mattered. “Ultimately, you have to give up everything for your craft,” she explained. “If you’re really serious about making music and being an artist as a full-time career, I would give up absolutely everything else and go for it. I don’t have relationships, I don’t really party anymore at all; I spend every breathing moment making music and designing for the show and holding rehearsals… It’s a bit psychotic.”

“You know, I probably won’t ever settle down,” GaGa told Music News in late 2009. “Part of me would love all that, but the bigger part of me knows it’s never going to happen. I don’t think I’m cut out for love and marriage. Music and my art are the big things in my life. I know whatever happens they won’t cheat on me and they’ll never let me down. Men nearly always do. I don’t need a man. I might sometimes want a man, but I don’t need one. I earn my money, I create my art, I know where I am going. I think my parents thought I’d be married by now, but I rebelled against that whole life. I’m unconventional, I’m a rebel.”

Lady GaGa and Luc Carl split in spring 2011 after almost a year together to reconcile the next month.

Meanwhile, Lady GaGa often says she’s bisexual and that fact that she’s into women usually scares men away.

GaGa is a real advocate for equal rights and opportunities for gay people. She likes to think about herself as “the girl who brought the straight boys into the gay club.” On October 11, 2009 GaGa took part in the National Equality March rally referring to it as “the single most important event of her career.”

In September 2010 Lady GaGa issued a video statement regarding the US military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that prohibited lesbians, gays and bisexuals from serving openly. In her statement she urged her fans to contact their Senators in an effort to get the policy overturned.

LADY GAGA’S DARK SECRETS

Since the very beginning of her career in music industry Lady GaGa has never made a secret of her dark past when she was experimenting with drugs and how heroin almost killed her. GaGa says her dad saved her then. “I don’t like to talk about it too much but there were drugs, serious drugs… My dad thought I’d lost it. With the drugs it was his reaction that pulled me back. I didn’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. I did it myself. So I stopped. I still drink and party, but there’s no darkness now.”

“I had just been through so much,” she told Vanity Fair September 2010 about one of the drug overdose episodes. “I hit rock bottom, and it was enough to send a person over the edge. My mother knew the truth about that day, and she screamed so loud on the other end of the phone, I’ll never forget it. And she said, ‘I’m coming to get you.’”

“Sometimes drugs can be like a creative journey,” GaGa said in 2009. “But it also can totally ruin like your whole life and can take over you, so I would never encourage anybody to go on that kind of creative journey.”

However, Lady GaGa confessed she still occasionally did cocaine, though urging her fans to stay away from similar experiments in their lives (“I don’t want my fans to think they have to be that way to be great.”)

LADY GAGA’S TATTOOS

Lady GaGa has about 8 tattoos. ‘Little Monsters’ is made for her fans, while the latest tattoo ‘Born This Way’ was added to her collection in September 2010 when she revealed the name of her new album. Also, GaGa has a tattoo for her dad – a heart on her left shoulder.

Lady GaGa says she only has tattoos on the left side of her body because her father wanted it so, saying that the right side of her body is her Marilyn Monroe side, while the inked one is her Iggy Pop side.

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